Concert Info

Program

Trevor Paglen
Kronos QuartetSight Machine

Visual artist Trevor Paglen and Kronos Quartet’s large-scale multimedia performance shows how machines and their algorithms perceive a live concert. During the performance, Kronos is monitored by an array of cameras that feed into a suite of computer vision algorithms used in applications from self-driving cars and guided missiles to facial recognition and biometric surveillance. The software has been modified to produce images of the information that it “sees,” which are then projected onto a screen behind Kronos in real time. Sight Machine illustrates the discrepancy between what we experience as human beings and what machines “see,” and urges us to consider the social, ethical, economic, and political consequences of such new ways of “seeing.”